Unless constantly protected by overhead garages, an automotive vehicle, when parked and with its windows and sunroof closed, is often subjected to the risk of overheating its interior. This overheating risk is particularly elevated in summers and in low-latitude regions of the world. For example, in a typical California summer day, the temperature of the interior of a car that has its windows and sunroof closed and parked under the direct sun may easily exceed 40.degree. C. In regions close to the Equator, interiors of cars sometimes are recorded to exceed 60.degree. C. under similar circumstances. Similarly, interiors of unattended cars may be too cold for comfort for people in early mornings when the windows and/or sunroofs were left opened for heat ventilation the day before. Again, this is a fairly usual circumstance for car owners in a typical California summer day that may reach 30.degree. C. during the day and may drop to 10.degree. C. at night.
For the electronic and mechanical components in or near the interior of a car, such high and low temperatures will reduce their operational life span. Also, excessively high and low temperatures in the interior of the car would clearly cause a discomforting or rather, a painful experience for the driver and passengers who are in the car or who subsequently seat themselves in it. This experience is keenly amplified for young children, elderly and those who are physically weak because of their reduced tolerance to discomfort. The discomfort and pain are especially unbearable for bare hands and legs that make contact with the metallic, vinyl, plastic and leather parts of the car interior. When temperatures become excessively hot or cold for even a short duration, lives of toddlers and pets often are lost either due to hyperthermia or hypothermia. Although it is illegal in many areas to leave toddlers, young children, pets and even otherwise incapacitated living beings unattended in the car, people still do. Furthermore, such legal protection, even if in existence, does not extend worldwide and therefore, it is desirable to have a system for alerting others when such danger exists.
One common solution to prevent overheating the interior is to roll down the car windows before leaving the car. For security reasons, the windows are typically lowered to a position so that air ventilation may be effective in lowering the interior temperatures but not too low a position so that burglars may easily gain access to the car. For some cars, alarm is provided to detect any irregular car access attempts. For hand-cranked window systems, a car driver typically removes the key from the ignition cylinder, cranks the window down to a satisfactory position and then leaves the car. For power window systems, they are usually advantageous over any hand-cranked systems in the areas of effort, speed and convenience. However, these window systems typically are not operable unless an ignition key cylinder is turned to ACCESSARY or ON position by an ignition key. Therefore, for such systems, the car driver has to make adjustment to the window position before turning the ignition key cylinder to OFF position and before removing the key from the ignition cylinder.
Other power window systems allow the car driver to remove the key from the ignition key cylinder first, and then regardless of the vehicle interior temperature, they immediately and automatically raise or lower car windows to desired positions for the purpose of preventing the overheating of the car interior. Unfortunately, these systems remove the flexibility desired by the car driver by assuming that the driver is leaving the car once the ignition key is removed. Even in the case that the driver does leave, moving the car windows to a fixed position regardless of vehicle interior temperature may harm toddlers and pets the driver leaves unattended. As an improvement, another system provides a sensor in the vehicle to detect presence of living beings. However, such sensor simply detects presence of living beings, but it does not attempt to distinguish the car driver from others who may be potentially incapacitated living beings. Advantageously, one embodiment of the present invention does attempt to make that distinction. That is, if the car driver is present in the car after the key is removed from the ignition cylinder, the present invention remains inactivated whereby affording the maximum flexibility to the car driver.
Although these existing systems do address the above-stated problems, they however, are partial solutions. First of all, they do not take into account the variability of temperature in the car interior as the car is parked over a time period. For example, a car driver drives to work in the morning. The chilly morning makes his car interior cold. At the time of leaving the car, to prevent the ill effects of the coldness on electronic and mechanical components, the driver should not lower the windows and should not open the sunroof for ventilation. However, as the sun rises, it heats up the car interior and now the windows should be lowered and the sunroof should be opened appropriately to prevent overheating the car interior. In the late afternoon, tree shades over the parked car allow the car interior to have comfortable temperatures and the windows and the sunroof should then be closed for security reasons. However, it may also be preferred that the windows and the sunroof are not closed until the vehicle interior temperature has dropped below a temperature threshold. Moreover, when comfortable temperatures do exist in the vehicle interior, an alternative control algorithm may be used to better maintain those comfortable temperatures.
Secondly, in extremely hot and cold days, it is possible that such temperature-dependent window and sunroof system does not prevent the temperature of the vehicle interior from rising or dropping into life danger zones. It is in those zones where the temperatures of the vehicle interior are likely to cause fatalities especially for those who are physically incapacitated. Therefore, it is desirable to have a communications system for alerting the vehicle driver or others when the danger of fatalities comes about.
These desired automatic window and sunroof adjustments occurring while the driver is away are not provided by any existing and prior art. Therefore, it is desirable to have a power window and sunroof system for automotive vehicles. This system is operative while the vehicle is left unattended. It intelligently controls the window and sunroof positions of the vehicle for ventilation to prevent the vehicle interior to become too hot or too cold. It further alerts the vehicle driver or others when life-threatening temperatures exist in the vehicle interior.